Saturday, October 10, 2009

King Lear The Huge and Little Queen Mab Up Close And Personal!

Ok my dears! Here you go for the fist time ever, up close and personal in both video and pictures, The Royals, King Lear the Huge and Little Queen Mab! As seen and photographed by our own dear Cat Mihos!

A little back story for anyone new to this blog: King Lear and Queen Mab are Bengals. (If you need more back story on "what is a Bengal" Google is your friend) They were fosters that I had taken on thru Great Lakes Bengal Rescue. Little Queen is an SBT F4 Bengal, meaning pretty darn domestic (for a Bengal) and Lear is an early generation F2 (meaning a whole lot of kitty who never should have been placed with someone who didn't know what they are doing, much closer to ALC)

I have had them for almost a year now, and have come to the decision that we can't adopt Lear out. He's huge, strong, and not trusting of anyone. If he felt threatened, he could get hurt, or hurt someone. He has bonded with me, but it is only recently, and only here for nearly the first time, that you can see him being friendly with another women.

Men, as yet, are NOT on Lear's list.

I used to called Lear, "King Lear the Worried". I never saw a cat who worried so much. He worried for himself. For his friend. I was their fourth place, and he simply worried. No purrs. No contact. Always hiding. When he came out, he was worried and troubled.

He still looks worried, you can see here a bit. But far less so. I tell him every day that he is staying. They both are and they are HOME. Actually, when I opened up the entire upstairs and started telling him that, was when he started trusting me.

Lear is a really special cat. There is something about him that pulls at your heart much more so than the others. Not sure what it is, maybe that I am all he has. Maybe there's just such a dignity about him, determined to live his life despite what's been thrown at him.

Little Queen Mab is a sweetie who puts art into playing. She's just sweet and good. I'm not sure which one this is on the couch below, but toys rock both their worlds. Mab sleeps with me now, but is still more timid than Lear.

It should be noted to anyone considering a Bengal or fostering one that Lear is an exception to the rule. Most Bengals are fun, energetic, friendly, outgoing and a joy and delight. Lear is an early generation Bengal, not recommended for a pet for someone without a lot of Bengal experience, and help from people with more. He also had some sad home situations where he was not happy.

Your new friend would be considered domestic, and they will love you.

I cried little tears when I saw these videos for the first time. To see these kitties go from scared, not trusting, hiding, afraid of the world cats, to the curious, full of wonder, and even joy kitties they are becoming is pretty much the greatest feeling ever.

77 Comments:

i can assure you that is the King Lear playing on the couch, look at that big puddin' head. he is the prize in the proverbial biggest crackerjack box, and i understand your tears. what a special royal couple. thanks Quiche for the steaky wake up this morning, and for sharing them with us all.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I awwww'd when I watched those videos. He really is an amazing cat. He's luck to have you. Well, they all are. :-)

My cat, Firefly, was completely feral when I got her as a kitten. She's not a Bengal, but I totally understand the worried look. She is a little love, now, but she does worry more than any other cat I've ever had.

This entry caused a few tears just reading it. I'm relatively new to reading (and even newer to posting on) this blog, so didn't know much about the Royals - they're incredibly lucky to have you. A win/win situation for Bengals and Humans.

Look, Kitty, I happen to have serious gig head going on here and I made a doughnut ERROR and bought you the wrong one. Life's like that. It happens. GO back to Maddy's Halloween Candy!

So glad you all like the Royals! There will be Magic, Venus and Mim vid and shots too, but there was too much for one day, more footage and shots tomorrow.

Frounette, I am sure someone car dig up a couple old Royal posts links if you want to read abou them coming, and how they nearly ended up in sanctuary being unadoptable and me selfishly not wanting five Bengals. Good thing I wised up.

No Billy, SKelly is DOWN staires, and Lear stays, not yet up to mixing with Venus and Mim.

Next spring I shall start letting them out to the Scream porch at different times. It has doors from both their areas. We shall see if I can make a cat family.

Dear Fablo, I take exception to your calling yourself selfish in any way. Considering sanctuary for the Royals seemed to me to be evaluating what would serve all the beings of your household best. And, kudos for arriving at this right answer.

Hugs and scritches to all the kitties....I think worried is an expression very intelligent kittehs get when they feel they've been moved around too much and aren't *quite* sure if they're done yet.

Now that we are packing, Angus is occasionally trotting from room to room w/his "worried" face on....but I know it will go away after a month of so in the new house. Lear has a whole lot more "you mean this *isn't* home?" history to get over; he sure has made amazing progress!

Now for Jane--*please* give big healing scritch energy to Calvin for me! Poor darlin'. Kitty on Kemo just sounds like the saddest thing.....

wait, you are blaming the DONUT ERROR on gig head?i don't know if that is viable. flimsy excuse at best.

so, good news, dinner happened, and was enjoyed.am working on the photo project & suppose the whip will come out shortly.

as for me, sad little me, i hear there are people there tonight, and no ball game and so here i am sad.Dr. Wickedly ! and Aleta May, are you there too?well boo, says i. i blame the wrong donut for everything.

I must admit, I had tears in my eyes looking at Lear...and QUiche, what Dabbler said. It would have been selfish to say you would keep the Royals without first making sure that you could afford to do so, for you and all the Bengals.

So much to catch up on. My niece, the vet nurse has been here overnight, and I've been away from the interwebs. She took out Shiraz's sutures, and Raz is much happier now.

Home now. Gig was a good one, and interesting, if not great. But I made a few people beyond happy, so that was well done.

El, my wonderful friend with the massage hands came, bless her. And Dr Wicked hoping to see Kitty, I am sure, came too.

Kitty, yes, I do blame gig head and just wait till tommorow! I will TRY and get the right donuts for you and Mads, no promises tho and it sure won't be early. Thanks for taking care of the Boss while I rocked.

The Bengal horde has been deprived since morning of me. I don't think I am sleeping soon, judging from the screams, but I am a little gigged for it anyway...

Using my amazing detective skills (clicking and more clicking), I snooped around the back issues of your blog to find the start of the Bengalling, and Lear and Mab's arrival. Yet more admiration for the work you've done with them. Very special cats!Glad the gig went well!

Good morning! Was met by a bee story in my early NYT online reading. Seems that a major soccer match between Mexico and El Salvador was halted due to a swarm of bees in one of the goals. The groundskeeper staff had to chase them away with fire extinguishers. The video is long...best bees are at about 2:30-3:30, otherwise it's a lot of Spanish sports commentary (I think, not conversant with Spanish.) Couldn't tell what kind, but they might be honey bees...

Well, they chased tyhem away with high powered fire extinguishers, which probably killed a number of them Hard to tell what else actually happened. Should have called a beekeeper, I think, but I'm not a soccer-mad-fan...

Ack. Sunday after gigs feeling. It will pass but I don't wake chipper.

The Royals do let me sleep, far more considerate than Venus and Mim were. The Royals are blessedly quiet kitties. Lear does do the bed walk starting around 6, where he walks around on the bed and sticks his head in my face, but that's about it.

I'm thinking of getting a scream door or glass door for Magic's room, so he can see out this winter, into the Romance Room.

And I'm thinking I need more tea.

And that that goal post was a bad place to pick for swarmming purposes.

w00t! Agreeing with Sally and dabbler - you had to be sure about the Royals. That's wisdom. And it's really heartwarming to see how much Lear has bloomed.

Great disco shirt, and great pic of the long black and purple locks, btw. :D

Jane, it's great to read Calvin's doing a bit better. May he continue to!

I hope a good number of that silly bess swarm got away. Goal post? Mics? So curious.

Slow Sunday morning here. At least it's stopped snowing. And more odd dreams - I haven't remembered my dreams for many long months, and now three nights in a row. This morning's was a mash-up of meeting lots of fiends and friends from many eras of my life, at a Wild West re-enactment. I blame facebook for the mash-up of characters.

Em, I am originally from L.A., but currently living in Alberta, via Arizona, Texas, and a few other places. :) My brother and many friends are still in Cali, which is how I happened to be there to meet up with fiends before.

And 60! Sounds like summer now. :( I like having four seasons. But snow in May, summer in September then snow in October? *blows raspberries*

At the mo', my monstress is watching Dora, and just learned that Ricardo Montalban (mayherestinpeace) did some voice work for the show. Cool!

Morning all. I hope those in Sunday are still enjoying the weekend. Due to stretchy Fiend Time its the start of the week here *groan* And winter has come back -no snow, but dark,windy,wet and cool. A good day to stay inside and watch doggie me thinks.

Sally, some of us get extra-special stretchy fiend time this week - Monday is a holiday! Haven't had a holiday since the beginning of July. Hooray for 3-day weekends, for those of us who get them. Being me, I've mostly been working on various overdue projects...

And there is a holiday here in Rhode Island as well, of course, so I'm looking forward to that. No schoolwork or work otherwise, which is kind of nice. I might miss shelving my Monday library books, though. Ah, well, Monday is normally a bit slow anyway. But gosh, Saturday ... I've never had that many carts to shelve. I could hardly walk when I was done!